23/05/2012

Some days are better than others. Today was a good day as my networking activities yielded several interesting opportunities. I wont go into details, but when I started the day I had no expectations and now I can look back on a day where networking showed its value.

Part of my networking activities today included a presentation for a group of executives talking about two very interesting topics:

1) Must Win Battles - a management tool I have extensive experience with
2) The Rolling Budget - a new management tool that I'm exploring

16/05/2012

Preparing for our grand cycling event - La Marmotte - on July 7th, requires many hours of training on the road per week. I'm stretching my legs after a 65 km bike ride where the wind seam to be head wind no mater in which directed we rode.

15/05/2012

Do we need all the mega pixels to create interesting photos? I believe not. But having fewer mega pixels at our disposal requires carefull planning while composing your shot, as you don't want to loose "pixel real estate" by cropping in post processing. I own a Nikon D300 with a 12 Mp sensor and it has served me well for 4 years. As I grew up shooting film I'm used to think all aspects through before capturing the actual photo and thereby keeping post processing to a minimum. But a Nikon D800 is on its way to me as the extra "pixel real estate" of a 36 Mp sensor offers a large freedom to crop interesting parts of photo.

Take this photo as an example. I used my Nikon D300 with a Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 and walked to a nearby creek. The I sad down on a small canoe gangway and looked at the scene around me for nearly 20 minuttes before a photo took form in my mind. The photo was composed so cropping would not necessary. The still water entering a large area of rush that took the form a great wall, looked like a potential interesting scene if transformed with one of my own texture layers and post processed in CS6.

13/05/2012

While visiting some our good friends Christina & Morten I had the opportunity to demonstrate some photo apps on my iPhone to nice person who still was unaware of all the bliss appearance on social media can bring you. The subject is the table cloth captured and post processed with the iPhone app "Camera+".

11/05/2012

Being a photographer - full time or part time - is very competitive. We all have the same equipment, which we can buy with no margin to the dealers due to the commodity nature of photographic equipment, and we all face clients that more or less have the same requirements and want a low price for maximum quality.

If you are an average photographer trying to survive in the main stream photographic business, then you will not make enough money to make a living.

How do you find your own voice, promote it and get the jobs? I can't give you an answer but the small lesson I have learned it to constantly challenge your own photographic abilities. It's not about how you master your equipment, but how you SEE an envision a photo opportunity. Applying the tools afterwards is just the basics.

I'm in no way a special gifted photographer. On the contrary - I've been annoyed with my own mediocrity for long. Yes - I can make technical perfect - but boring photos. But I want to make something that echoes for long. A visual statement that is unique and stand out of the incredible noisy crowd of "wannabe" photographer.

I'm so tired of stumbling into webpages of www.xyz_photography.com, where people who just have bought a digital camera starts to promote themself as Photographer. They don't sell anything and they just get some kind of ego satisfaction by seeing their photos on a websites that is accessible for everybody but that nobody visits.

I probably among the group of wannabe photographers I'm describing above - but I've been photographing for 35 years, and I'm still working hard to find my own voice.

The two photos I've posted today was captured while I visited the Nikon Denmark office to collect a Nikon Speedlight SB-910 for test on my blog - NikonNyt.

It was a normal boring neighbourhood but I tried hard to find a scene that would stand out. I hope I succeded.

A very colorful tulip in my garden. But I wanted the viewer to focus on the perfect shape and not the colors. After converting to b/w I added a scratched green metal surface as a layer and blended the two layers. I think this further enhanced the fragility of the tulip.

08/05/2012

I'm bit behind posting a photo per day (Project 365) - but I'll catch up soon. Yesterday Peter and I took a short ride - only 36 km - but we managed to keep an average pace of 31.3 km per hour on a road with many small hills. Not bad for a couple of old guys.

06/05/2012

This is not a typical architectural photo. It is a part of my new office floor where we are installing a floor heating system (gulvvarme). Whenever I see metal objects and concrete I feel compelled to snap a photo.

This might be one of my creative project - displaying metal in various ways that make the viewer stop and look at an ordinary object becomes transformed into someting different?!

05/05/2012

What is creativity? The above photo is not about creativity, but about good skills within photography and the ability to creata a "Ahhh", "Nice", Beautiful" comment from followers on social photo sites like Flickr. But all though I like this photo and I had fun while post processing it (and shooting it) its not displaying my creativity. While I'm becoming better at mastering photography from an equipment point of view I'm still completely blind when it comes to communicating a story through my photography. Its only beautiful photos.

After reading about the young photographer Natalie Dybisz aka Miss Aniela on Lenscratch, I even more convinced that I need to define a new mission for becoming a true photographer with my own voice.

Focus is needed. A couple of themes that is close to my heart and mind is needed. Creating a body of work, that can be presented as a visual statement to galleries and magazine editors, is the strategy I'm going to follow.

Here is an example of Natale Dybisz work:

Harmony String

Here is a remark that Natalie Dybisz made during the interview to Lenscratch:

Give yourself time to create a body of work, which you could share ‘in progress’ through internet platforms but don’t feel the pressure to ‘present’ yourself with a website and pursue exhibitions, publicity etc until you have something solid and worthy to show. Things might might move faster in the internet age but as the saying goes, ‘there is no shortcut to the places worth going’. Some patience needs to be had in being able to first form a foundation from which you are happy to stand for the long-term.

02/05/2012

3 days left and Denmark is dressed in pink!... - The toughest cycling race - Giro d'Italia - starts in Denmark this year

I'm into cycling - this is no secret. Being on the road on a cycle for 4-5 hours in a stretch going up and down the hills (or mountains) in all kind of weather makes you understand what the professional cycle teams and their stars have to endure to occupy the Nr. 1 spot in the podium.

This photo I took while the Team Saxo Bank was presented for the press and fans. The scene was BMW dealer Jan Nygaard A/S in Lyngby. On the far right team captain Bjarne Riis - who has won both the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France.